Dudley touched on many issues surrounding how the Fed could tighten rates with its balance sheet so large. Specifically, he said the ability to pay interest on excess reserves and so-called reverse repos will help them do so without the Federal Reserve selling off the securities it’s accumulated.

Raymond Stone of Stone McCarthy Research said that testing so far of reverse repos has shown favorable results. But Stone points out hawks might find sustaining such a large balance sheet, which now stands at over $4 trillion, “distasteful.”

Stone points out a related issue — that the maturity (and not just the size) of the Fed’s holdings has grown substantially. “Thus a case can be made that the Fed might want to rebalance its own portfolio at some point in time to truly normalize not just short term interest rates, but also to remove the purposeful manipulation of the term structure of interest rates,” he writes.

The Fed minutes — which also will contains details over the debate of when, and by how much, to lift interest rates — will be the focus of a crowded economic calendar. After speaking on Tuesday, Dudley’s planned speech on the regional labor market at 10 a.m. will likely take on less importance. Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen at 11:30 a.m. will be delivering a commencement address — probably not a venue for major monetary policy addresses.

Two other Fed officials from opposite sides of the spectrum also will speak, with ardent hawk Esther George, the president of the Kansas City Fed, speaking at 12:50 p.m., and converted dove Narayana Kocherlakota, the president of the Minneapolis Fed, speaking at 1:30 p.m.